Black History Month: The Revolutionary Minds That Molded and Led The Black Panther Party

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Geronimo Pratt

After completing two combat tours in Vietnam for the Army, Pratt joined the Black Panthers’ Los Angeles chapter and served as the Deputy Defense Minister.

In 1970, Pratt was arrested and charged with the December 1968 armed robbery and murder of Caroline Olsen, a Los Angeles schoolteacher. Despite Pratt having an alibi that he was attending a Black Panther meeting in Oakland at the time of the murder, none of the Panthers stepped forward to coraborate his story, and witnesses pointed to him as the killer. Pratt was arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping.

After serving 27 years in prison, Pratt’s murder conviction was overturned (with the help of his attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.) and he was released from jail in June 1997.

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